Square plans major staff expansion in NYC and a new East Coast HQ

Square will open a new New York City satellite headquarters this summer that will house up to 350 employees – and it plans to fill it. Square said on Thursday that it’s aggressively hiring engineers, designers, support representatives and other staff in what has become one of Square’s most important global markets.

Square counts more than 100,000 local merchants in the New York metropolitan area accepting payments through Square’s point-of-sale hardware and software, and it’s processing $1 billion in card transactions in the region alone.

The new office will keep Square in NYC’s SoHo neighborhood where it opened its first east coast office after acquiring design agency 80/20 in 2012. The new facility will be located at 375 Broadway, just a few blocks away from up-and-coming competitor ShopKeep POS, which today announced a $25 million Series C funding round. Once Square is done hiring, its NYC employee presence will increase ten-fold (it has 35 workers in SoHo today), and it will increase its current total staff of 800 to well over 1,000.